- BHEL has offered 410 kWh of cumulative battery capacity for a total cost of Rs 2.51 crore
- The tender was open for both lithium-ion and advanced lead-acid companies
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has come out as the best supplier of battery and associated equipment in a tender recently floated by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) for installation and maintenance of battery energy storage systems (BESS). BHEL has offered 410 kWh of cumulative battery capacity for a total cost of Rs 2.51 crore. It includes six years of comprehensive warranty and maintenance. Responses to this tender were received from Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra Susten, Hero Solar, Honeywell Automation, Amara Raja, Okaya Power among others.
Dr Ajay Mathur, director-general, TERI said, “These tender results are game changing – they show that it is cost-effective for BRPL to add batteries instead of adding transformer capacity in many instances, and for housing societies to use solar-cum-battery systems for electricity supply instead of DG sets. It also shows that if time-of-day tariffs are applicable on a year-on-year basis then batteries, along with solar rooftop, are a cost-effective way of minimising electricity cost.”
Five years of BESS on turnkey basis
The tender was open for both lithium-ion and advanced lead-acid companies. It was aimed at design, supply, testing, installation and commissioning along with Comprehensive Annual Maintenance Contract (CAMC) for five years of BESS on turnkey basis in NCT of Delhi.
TERI, under the licensee area of BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) is implementing a pilot project to integrate Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) at the distribution level. It is being done under an initiative of US-India collaborative for smart distribution system with storage (UI-ASSIST). This is a bi-lateral consortium of 30 collaborating entities, led in India by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and by Washington State University (WSU) in the USA.
Cumulative installed capacity of 125 kW for two hours or higher
Alekhya Datta, fellow and area convenor, electricity and fuel division, TERI said, “This tender holds special importance as it identifies appropriate technologies as per techno-economic evaluation and validates their technical characteristics under Indian environmental conditions. Further, it gathers data to explore more opportunities for BESS in managing the variability of demand and supply at the electricity distribution level. It also states a suitable step-by-step process to evaluate technology as nascent as battery energy storage.”
Under this tender, the bidder was expected to have installed and operationalized BESS of cumulative installed capacity of 125 kW for two hours or higher. Of this, least one grid-interactive BESS would be of 30 kW for two hours capacity or higher (in India or globally).
